| Subject: Yogyakarta
mourns slain Father Tarcisius Dewanto
Jakarta Post December 10, 1999
Yogyakarta mourns slain Father Tarcisius
Dewanto
By Sri Wahyuni
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Catholics in this
ancient city are still mourning the death of Father Tarcisius Dewanto, who
in September died an untimely death at the age of 36.
Romo Anto, as the priest was
affectionately called, was among dozens of people, including another two
priests, massacred in a church in Suai, East Timor, when pro-Jakarta
militia stormed refugees holed up in the church.
His remains were exhumed on Nov. 25 from
a mass grave in Belu, East Nusa Tenggara, where another 25 victims of the
Suai massacre were also buried in mass graves. They were unearthed by a
fact-finding team from the National Commission on Human Rights.
The two other slain priests, whose bodies
were also found in the mass graves, were identified as Father Hilario
Madeira and Father Francisco Soares.
Romo Anto, who hailed from the Central
Java town of Magelang, some 40 kilometers north of here, was assigned to
the Suai Church only from Aug. 13, 1999.
"I'm glad that they finally found
the body of my son and reburied him (in Dili), that he is now buried in a
dignified way," Romo Anto's mother Lucia Rahayu Suharno, 64, told The
Jakarta Post.
Romo Anto was the youngest son of the
three children of the late Stephanus Suharno and Lucia. Born in Magelang
on May 18, 1965, the young Dewanto was known as a church activist.
He served the local parish as an altar
boy before he enrolled in 1981 at the Mertoyudan Seminary School near
Magelang.
After finishing his studies at
Mertoyudan, he studied from 1983 to 1987 at the Garum Seminary High School
in the East Java town of Blitar. He then served his SJ novitiate period in
Girisonta, Central Java, until 1989. Then he learned philosophy at the
Driyarkara School of Philosophy in Jakarta from 1989 to 1993. He served
his pastoral duty in Surakarta, Central Java, for two years until he began
in 1997 theology studies at the Wedabhakti School of Theology, Yogyakarta.
In 1998 he was assigned as a teacher at
Balide Seminary High School in Dili, East Timor, where he worked until May
1999. It was his first job in the territory.
When the students in major cities took to
the streets to press for political reforms -- a move that would help bring
about Soeharto's downfall -- Dewanto sent letters to some of his friends
in Yogyakarta, telling them he wanted to join the movement. But he could
only pray for its success due to his Dili placement.
On July 14, 1999, he was ordained as a
priest at the Santo Ignatius Church, Yogyakarta.
Dewanto left for East Timor for the
second time on Aug. 13, 1999. Unlike his first visit, as his close friend
Father Athanasius Kristiono Purwadi remembers, this time the newly
ordained priest Dewanto took up the assignment "very happily".
"He accepted the job
wholeheartedly," said Kristiono, one of his confidantes.
Kristiono remembered Dewanto as
"humorous and easy going". Like most Yogyakartans, Romo Anto
loved plesetan (joking by twisting words). Kristiono recalled a time when
Dewanto told him in an amusing e-mail that he had been stoned.
In August, Romo Anto left Dili for Suai,
some 80 kilometers to the southwest. His mother said that on the day his
son left for Suai he asked her not to contact him unless he did so, saying
he would "work in a remote place unreachable by phone".
"He also told me that he would serve
an underdeveloped community in the new place. The community was so
underdeveloped that they would run to a priest for anything, including
medicine. That was my last contact with my son," Lucia recalled.
Lucia received news about Romo Anto's
death on Sept. 9. "Condolences came from everywhere. Some of them
came from Surabaya, Purwokerto, and even from the Philippines," Lucia
said.
"We realized that he was not just
ours. He had belonged to the public after he was ordained. That's why we
all wholeheartedly let him go."
Colese St Ignatius Kotabaru, Yogyakarta,
(the center of the Society of Jesus in Indonesia) held a requiem mass at
Kotabaru Church on Sept. 11. The Purwokerto Diocese held such masses for
seven consecutive days. The dioceses of Surabaya, Semarang and other
cities did the same.
It was for this same reason that Lucia
did not insist on burying her son in his hometown. She believed Dili was
the best place for him to be laid to rest.
"I was told that when the time is
appropriate, I would have the chance to visit my son's grave," Lucia
said.
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